Wolfkind

by Stephen Melling

  Serefini, his hair and his clothes drenched, entered with a HK MP5 slung over each shoulder. With one hand he wiped the rain off his face, dislodging several band-aids in the process.

  Durant recognized the look in Serefini’s eyes; an unclassifiable guise most people mistook for bravado – but bravado it wasn’t. As a man resigned to his fate, he had nothing else to fear, and so became unpredictable. Right now, Serefini looked more dangerous than ever. Durant felt both amazed and repulsed by the realization he feared his bodyguard.

  Dripping rainwater as he paced, Serefini complained that the guards couldn’t maintain maximum alertness in the storm. “They’re bitching like a bunch of wiseass school-kids,” he said.

  “This is war,” Durant said. “Not a picnic.”

  Serefini said nothing. He stared at Durant, holding his gaze a few seconds longer than he had ever dared to in the past. Durant almost flinched. “Was there something else?”

  The bodyguard shook his head, but didn’t drop his gaze.

  Another ripple of fear coursed through Durant. Never before had the hired help dared to stare at him for longer than a couple of seconds. And never before had one of his men made him feel as exposed as he felt right now. Perhaps Serefini had brushed so close to his own death that he now recognized fear of dying in others. Durant then realized the precisely why Serefini was staring.

  The whole of the left side of Durant’s face was twitching spasmodically, pulling at the corners of his mouth. He brought up a hand, wiping the palm over his face, hiding the twitching muscle.

  “Nah,” Serefini said. “There’s nothing else.”

  Durant wiped his hand roughly down the side of his face, massaging the point of his cheek that twitched. He moved to face his number two, using his height to intimidate. A huge thunderclap made the glasses clink. “Then what are you standing here for?”

  Serefini did not move. “You know we’re a list of dead people?”

  “So long as you’re clear on who’s last on that list.”

  Serefini smiled. “Crystal clear.”

  Genna shivered and sighed. Her clothes were thoroughly soaked. And her fingertips were so cold she needed to look at them to be sure they still clung to the wall. Through dripping tendrils of her saturated hair she watched the men finally break across the lawn, where they joined several others sheltering beneath the boughs of a massive oak. Their weapons clattering heavily as they went.

  At the risk of being spotted, she leaned as far over the balcony as she dared, playing a perilous game with her balance. At the limit of her stretch, she could see down to the foundations of the house. No one else sheltered there. With rainwater running into her eyes and up her nose, she pulled her head back up, light-headed from the blood-rush. To her left those manning the gun emplacements were tightly huddled beneath army-issue waterproofs; to her right the sentries at the main entrance had retreated under the porch.

  Come on, she urged herself. Now or never. She took a breath and prepared to swing herself into a dead hang position. Her fingers were so numb she figured she could hang on for only a few seconds, but that was ample for her to orient herself with a landing.

  As she gripped the inner edge of the rail and tipped her balance toward the drop, she heard footsteps squelching on the saturated carpet inside the French windows. Instead of quickly dropping she hesitated and looked round.

  Divo Serefini stood maybe five feet away, hands raised like the creature in curse of the mummy, creeping up on her. Their eyes met. For half a second the pair of them froze. Then Serefini abandoned stealth for blitz and launched himself at her.

  Genna tried to both dodge his lunge and simultaneously throw herself over the balcony, counting on providence to grant her a soft landing on one of the cars. But as she tensed her legs, water squeezing and bubbling from the fabric of her jeans, Serefini grabbed a fistful of her hair. His other hand found her throat, and he squeezed her windpipe. Black spots bloomed before her eyes, and when they finally cleared, she looked up and saw not the sky but the bedroom ceiling.

  Serefini stood silhouetted against the window, the curtains billowing above him as he cast aside his weapons. His chest rose and fell rapidly; he started panting like a dog, teeth clenched and nostrils flared. The usual arrogant and slightly unhinged look he carried had become a wild-eyed look of mischief. “No goodbye kiss?”

  Leaning against the baseboard, Genna massaged her throat. Pain burned in her scalp. When she touched her head, she came away with several strands of hair, fingers warm and bloody.

  Serefini sidled toward her. “You’re some tease.” One of his Band-Aids hung by only a corner, revealing a suppurating wound beneath. The hank of leather holding in his ponytail had worked loose. Twists of hair dangled over his eyes.

  Genna made a lunge for Serefini’s weapon, but he anticipated this, and laughing, grabbed her arms at the wrists, dragged her up off the floor slammed her down on the bed. He moved his face to within inches of hers. “If you tease, then you has to please.” He nuzzled his head into her neck, kissing and sucking and biting.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re all dead men,” he said, pawing at her.

  She fought as hard as she could, but the man was nearly twice her weight. He pinned her to the bed with one hand whilst tugging at her clothes with the other. Her blouse buttons popped open and he forced his hand along her belly and down the front of her jeans, straining against the button. A look of manic concentration twisted his features as he probed.

  Unable to prevent this, she deliberately relaxed. Serefini quickly shifted himself into a deeper position. As he did so, Genna took a deep breath and brought up her knee with all the effort she could muster. But her wet jeans restricted her movement, which gave Serefini the half second he needed to bring in one of his own knees to protect himself.

  “If you had balls,” he said in her face. “You’d know how naughty that was.” Still holding her fast, he wrapped his fingers tighter around her windpipe. Then, raising himself, drew back a fist and struck her an inch below her breast bone.

  Sickening pain exploded in her stomach and she could not draw breath. All the fight left her at the speed of sound. Bile filled her mouth but she lacked the strength to retch. Using both hands now, Serefini started to tear feverishly at her buttons.

  With all the fight gone, she fell limply to the bed sheets, desperately trying to draw breath. Her chest hitched, pulling in short, inadequate snatches of oxygen.

  Serefini became feverish, frustrated at being unable to remove her soaked jeans. Instead he struggled with his own zipper. Tore off his jacket. “Oh yes!” he said. “Oh yes…oh yes. Going to tear you up, bitch. Gonna work you so hard standing upright will give you a nose bleed.”

  She tried to say something to him, but only a soft hiss escaped her lips. Serefini slapped her. “Shut!” he slapped her again. “-the fuck up.” He finally dropped his pants and grabbed hold of his erection triumphantly. “Gonna teach you a lesson in obedience,” he said.

  Part Three

  The Invisible Assassin

  Despite the air-conditioning inside the surveillance room George Decarius felt hot and sticky and increasingly irritable. He loosened his neck-tie and unfastened the top three buttons of his shirt. His headset, with which he could communicate with any guard in the complex, hung askew on his face and he righted it.

  His eyes stung and itched from staring at the large monitor in front of him. This particular screen linked to the thermal imaging camera bolted to a pole at the highest point in the grounds. Each guard outside appeared as an ill-defined heat signature. Several were sheltering beneath the trees. Others dutifully patrolled their pre-mapped routes. Using a joystick to remote operate the camera, Decarius continued his slow 360 degree scans of the perimeter. The image vibrated in the high wind.

  A mighty thunderclap boomed above the house. Windows shook. Several closed circuit TVs briefly lost their images. The electric storm was playing ping-pong with the r
adio and television signals, though thankfully causing nothing more serious than snow and static. So far the surveillance loop was ticking over sweetly. Even if a lightning bolt were to take out L.A’s power grid they would still have juice; in such an event the in-house generators would automatically kick in.

  It was during his second sweep George noticed something that was not there on the first sweep. At the upper limit of his screen, barely in the camera’s range, a white heat signature glowed through the screen’s blackness. He remote tilted the camera and centered the pixilated image.

  A large amorphous mass. Twenty or so meters beyond the outer fence in a tract of scrubland owned by the city. The presence emitted a significant heat signature, yet resembled no discernible shape. An animal?

  He tilted the camera downward until he saw the familiar heat signatures of guards patrolling the perimeter. Along the narrow track on the other side three of the dogs raced back and forth. George frowned. Those nearest the fence were surely close enough to eyeball the heat source, but no one reported anything.

  Abruptly the shapeless white heat mass broke into three separate entities, quickly fanned out and speeds far exceeding that of a man, closed on the fence. Along the dog-run circling the complex, the smaller infrared images of the Dobermans flew frenziedly back and forth.

  One of the guards by the fence came on the radio, his voice subdued by rainfall and barking Dobermans. “Control, anything on the cameras? Fucking dogs are going ding-a-ling. Can’t see shit in this rain.”

  Decarius broke from his paralysis and grabbed the radio. “Northeast quadrant! Look to the fence. The Fence! – Right in front of you. Jesus Christ can’t you see anything they’re…” he was on his feet now, squeezing the radio with one hand and panning the remote camera with the other. Three speeding - indeed accelerating - heat signatures reached the line that indicated the boundary, and without slowing-

  -entered the compound.

  “Inside!” Decarius’ voice went soprano. “They’re inside the perimeter.”

  The loud speaker in the control room cracked with the guard’s voice: “Where? George I can’t see shi-” His radio died.

  Decarius panned the thermal imager down to the guard’s last position. The infra-red imaging picked out the shape of a man lying on the ground, limbs splayed at odd angles. A fainter heat sources flowed from the guard’s head or neck, carried away on the storm run-off. “Oh Jesus!”

  He hit the alarm.

  Genna Delucio lay helpless under Serefini’s superior weight. The spider of pain that radiated from her solar plexus began to ease. As she gradually regained her wind, she became aware that Serefini had managed to free her right leg of her wet jeans. He had not bothered freeing the other leg. Grunting, he stretched himself out, prized her thighs apart with his own knees, paused to wet himself with a handful of spit, and then positioned himself to invade her body. His erection slid directionless about her inner thighs. Cursing, he let go of her in order to guide himself.

  The instant she felt the pressure leave her throat, Genna craned her neck forward, opened her mouth, and sank her teeth into his face.

  Serefini tried to pull away, but Genna hung on, her head coming up off the bed. Not content just to bite him, she brought up her knee, slammed it squarely into his exposed crotch. He grunted and clapped his own knees inward to protect himself. Still clinging on with her teeth, she clawed at his eyes with her fingernails, reopening his wounds.

  Serefini shrieked in pain and outrage. He forced his fingers into her mouth and tried to pry open her jaws. She bit his fingers. He let go and drove his fist into her side; once, twice. Pain greater than anything she had known stabbed through her midsection. She cried out, but steeled herself and bit down until finally, her teeth came together. Serefini’s blood, hot and coppery, flowed into her mouth and down her throat, making her retch.

  Groaning like an angered Grizzly bear, Serefini punched her again, finally tearing free of her grip. “Bitch!”

  Oh fuck, Genna thought wretchedly, and spat out a chunk of the man’s flesh. She groaned. On each inhale, something sharp pricked at her insides. And when she coughed, blood welled up into her mouth.

  Still astride her, breathing erratically, Serefini pressed one hand to his cheek and cupped his throbbing balls with the other. His fingers, which explored the somewhat unrecognizable terrain of his left cheek, came away gloved in blood. He stared in disbelief at his crimson fingers.

  Then the blood-gloved hand screwed up into a fist. He punched her in the mouth. “Animal!”

  Stars exploded before her eyes, swam on the periphery of her vision, clearing in time for her to see the fist coming down again. She hardly felt the second blow, for the first one had rendered the side of her face numb. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her up from the bed. “We could’ve had something,” he said. “And now this.” He spit in her face. “Frigid cock-teasing bitch.”

  Genna heard none of his cursing. Her chest pounded so hard she thought her ribs would break. Alarm bells tolled in her head, surely a forewarning she was perilously close to physical ruin. Indeed, the bell was so clear she frowned, swallowed a mouthful of blood, and listened to the ringing and the banging.

  Even Serefini appeared to have heard it, for he stepped off her and pulled up his trousers, hopped over to the window and looked out, stooping for his discarded weapons.

  A strident voice filtered through the ringing and pounding, unintelligible at first, then gradually words and phrases emerged from the confusion. “Attack! Attack!” the voice yelled. “Serefini? Are you in there? We’re under attack.” Someone in the corridor was hammering on the door. The alarm whooped shrilly.

  Saved by the bell, she thought dazedly, and then retched onto the sheets, bringing up only a clot of blood. Oh Genna baby, she thought dismally, you are in one hell of a mess. Though compared with being violated by her father’s bodyguard, she believed she had landed the lesser of two evils.

  The sub-tropical storm, screaming toward its peak, roared in through the French windows, freezing her exposed legs, peppering her skin with icy raindrops. She retched again, but only dry heaved. The exertion drove her to the edge of consciousness. The world blackened, swung sideways, then finally settled.

  Abruptly as a jack-in-the-box Serefini appeared at the foot of the bed, his eyes wide with fright, fear or flight. She met his lunatic gaze. The slimy son of a bitch actually grinned at her. She thought maybe he was preparing to open fire, but instead he leered at her semi-naked body. “Don’t go anywhere, sweets,” he said, and then ducked out of the door. The key turned in the lock; quick footsteps receded down the corridor.

  Shivering and semi-naked, feeling dirty and indecent, Genna reached for her jeans, but needed to rest a moment. Her tongue explored the shockingly unfamiliar terrain of her teeth. She figured at least two of her incisors were chipped.

  A savage blast of wind tore through the curtains. The shrill alarm whooped and whooped, each peak more distressing than the last. The implications of the alarm made a slow burning impact and finally she forced herself to move.

  Escape was clearly no longer an option. If she tried dropping from the balcony in her condition she would probably break a leg. And anyway…they were out there.

  She needed to hide.

  Within ten seconds of Stromboli Mansion’s security breach, every guard in the complex was alerted. The alarm shrieked and the few remaining floodlights duly flashed on, their brilliance dimmed only slightly by the incessant rain. Lightning whip-cracked directly overhead, the subsequent thunderclap rattling the window panes.

  Dobermans charged up and down the space between the inner and outer fence, snapping at thin air, at each other. Their coats heavy and dripping, their feet muddy and their bellies splashed with dirt. Two of them fought like pit-bulls, all teeth and muscle, tearing at each other. They brushed against the inner fence and were instantly electrocuted. Several floodlights blew.

  Gregory Harman, one of Sanderman’
s hirelings, ran along the fence to where a guard lay face down. Harman unbuckled his radio and screamed into it. “Man down here; repeat, we got a man down.” When he rolled the casualty onto his back he immediately recognized Steve Melio, another of Sanderman’s men. “Ste-” Then Harman saw the throat injury.

  “Aghh!” To his immediate right the Dobermans were going bat shit. Sections of the perimeter the fence were shorting out. Several more floodlights blew. Harman looked up. Ahead of him, running along the fence cradling an automatic weapon was another guard, dressed in heavy combat gear, splashing over the soaked lawn.

  “It’s Steve.” Harman shouted over the din. “He’s dead.”

  As Harman watched, a dark figure leaped from the tree line and fell into stride with the guard and with the speed of a cobra appeared to head but him. Whatever venom the attacker spat must have been super toxic, for the unfortunate guard was dead before he fell; his legs collapsed beneath him as though he were a puppet with its strings cut. Before the body even hit the ground, the attacker leaned into a sprint and flew at Harman, eating ground with terrifying ease.

  One thought shot through Harman’s mind before his soldier instinct snatched the reins. That thought: It isn’t human.

  Harman dropped into a one-kneed crouch, shouldered the MP5, flicked the selector to full automatic fire and was already squeezing the trigger. High velocity 9mm slugs traced a 700 rounds per minute splash-path along the wet grass that ultimately intercepted the advancing killer. But as the columns of water reached the target, the wraith-like entity nimbly sidestepped the fire-line, and before Harman readjusted his aim, the figure was upon him. With jarring suddenness his weapon was gone.

  His training and discipline stepped meekly aside in favor of a more primal instinct; he raised his hands defensively, pleas for mercy trembling on his lips. The last things he saw were a bloody, dripping set of canine teeth and blazing red eyes full of seething hate and dark intelligence. Darkness struck him like the snap of a bullwhip. His pain, though intense, was mercifully brief. And before he tumbled face down in the dirt, the creature was gone.